NOT >>with the proliferation of all these cheap PCs, AOL's sub #s
>>could skyrocket.
I assume you saw that in WSJ, which used as source sell-side
analysts touting Internet stocks and AOL. Read this..............
10/08/97 CI CONFIRMS SALES OF SUB-$1,000 PCs EXPLODED IN AUGUST
Low-Priced PCs Accounted for Nearly Two in Five Retail Desktop
Units Sold -- But Did Not Attract New Buyers
LA JOLLA, Calif.,
Oct. 8, 1997 -- Sub-$1,000 PCs captured nearly 40 percent of U.S.
retail desktop unit sales in August, according to just-released
figures from Computer Intelligence (CI), the leading source of
fact-based information for the computer and communications
industries. The results came from CI's StoreBoard Channel
Tracking service; a separate study from CI also sheds light on
who is buying these low-priced PCs.
......................
A key issue for PC manufacturers is whether the new sub-$1,000
PCs have attracted first-time buyers or lower-income households.
Are the new price points broadening the base of consumers using PCs
by attracting new classes of users, or are existing users purchasing
the sub-$1,000 PCs? Data from CI's quarterly Trendata Study
suggests that the new price points are not, in fact, broadening
the market.
First-quarter and second-quarter results from CI's Trendata
Study have shown that the distribution of household income of
sub-$1,000 PC buyers is no different from the overall buyer
profile. Nor are the sub-$1,000 PCs attracting first-time buyers
-- in fact, there are proportionally fewer first-time buyers of
sub-$1,000 PCs than of PCs overall.
"The Trendata results make it clear that, so far at least, the
sub-$1,000 PC is not the consumer-market panacea that some had
hoped," Sargent said. "While these PCs are certainly
accelerating growth in the consumer PC market, they are not
attracting large numbers of either first-time buyers or
lower-income households. This revelation has important marketing
implications for manufacturers of the sub-$1,000 PCs. It also
tells us that an $850 or $950 price alone is unlikely to
radically increase the penetration of PCs into U.S. households." |
